A StarNewsOnline Blog

The emporium for all things literary

It isn’t often that a golf book fringes on politics. But “The Range Bucket List,” the latest collection of essays from Wilmington native James Dodson, came out from Simon and Schuster on Tuesday (May 9) at a particularly fraught time. Dodson writes about high points in his career as a golf writer. (He was a longtime columnist for golfing magazine, and is the author of “Ben Hogan: An American Life” and “American Triumvirate,” an award-winning triple biography, Hogan, Sam Snead… Read More »

Celia Rivenbark dropped by the newsroom Friday to update her column photo and cheer on the UNC Tar Heels fans among the newsies. While there, she dropped a little news: No book is in the pipeline, but she’s putting finishing touches on an original play to be staged in June and July at TheatreNow. The title is still “To Be Announced”; TheatreNow is tentatively listing it as “The Best of Celia.” The dinner theater, you might recall, has had good… Read More »

It was good to have Charles Fort back in Wilmington earlier this month. Fort, 65, taught English at UNCW back in the 1980s, when he published his poetry collection “The Town Clock Burning” (1985). He headed up the UNCW creative writing program when it was still a part of the English department. He was back for the memorial service for his friend, Michael Caliva, and read a poem for the occasion. If you weren’t there for the occasion, here’s the… Read More »

Dorothy Papadakos had some new for her fans Monday night at Prologue, the StarNews/WHQR book club. Her fantasy novel, “The Kingdom of Winter” has just been approved as a science-and-literature text in the Wake County (N.C.) school system. Although it’s narrated by the North Wind, Papadakos said she worked carefully to base her fantasy on factual information about climate change, consulting with a number of scientists. In the Raleigh area, she worked with Josh Hunter, an award-winning sixth grade science… Read More »

It was so good to have the historical novelist Suzanne Adair back in the area for the anniversary of the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge. Adair, who lives in the Raleigh area, is a Revolutionary War re-enactor, serving as a camp follower with the “33rd Light Company of Foot,” a Redcoat unit. Unfortunately (she explained in a phone interview), the Moores Creek observances always seem to conflict with a book festival or a reading. This year, however, the organizers solved the… Read More »

Wilmington native Lauren Collins has a major new story on child refugees in Europe in the Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker. (Want to read it? Click here.) In a “Reporter at Large” feature titled “The Children’s Odyssey,” Collins cites official European sources noting that more than 100,000 unaccompanied child refugees — mostly from Syria and Afghanistan — are scattered across a number of European countries. Laws and treaties are supposed to guarantee humane treatment of child refugees but… Read More »

If you haven’t heard from Wilmington-born author Peggy Payne, there’s a good reason. On her revamped blog, Payne tells the harrowing story of how a pre-Christmas “date night” turned into a medical crisis when her husband Bob, a clinical psychologist, suddenly complained of pains in his neck. It turned out he had an aortic aneurysm and had to rushed to Duke Medical Center for lifesaving surgery. It was a close thing. Bob is recovering now and much better. To read Payne’s… Read More »

His name might be hard to recall, but you know his most famous work — especially if I play that creepy Tubular Bells theme. William Peter Blatty, author of the 1970s publishing phenomenon “The Exorcist,” died Thursday, Jan. 12, at the age of 89 at his home in Bethesda, Md. Family members said he had been suffering from cancer. Ironically, Blatty had spent much of his career as a Hollywood comedy writer, writing scripts for Blake Edwards, Zero Mostel and… Read More »

Sad news from Monday night’s Prologue: author Sheila Webster Boneham, a longtime presence on the local book scene, is moving to Oregon in the spring with her husband. An Indiana native and a self-described “recovering academic,” Boneham holds a Ph.D. in folklore. She is the author of more than a dozen books on dogs, cats, pet care and animal rescue — notably “Rescue Matters” — as well as four mystery novels, including “Drop Dead on Recall,” “Catwalk” and “Shepherd’s Crook.” Among… Read More »

Many Wilmington residents will remember Bolton Anthony for his work with centennial observances of the 1898 Wilmington race riot/coup/massacre/whatever. Anthony, who’s now based in Chapel Hill, has written an autobiography, “This Given Life: A Catholic Life in Context” (By the author, $16). A New Orleans native who spent much of his childhood in Houston, Anthony, 72, describes living through such tumultuous incidents at the Martin Luther King assassination. He also describes how his faith evolved from a “cultural,” ethnic Catholicism… Read More »

My review of “A Question of Mercy” by Elizabeth Cox appears in this Sunday’s issue of the StarNews. The poignant revolves around the fate of a mentally challenged young man in a small North Carolina town in the early 1950s (back when we called such people “retarded”). Cox, the author of such critically acclaimed novels as “Night Talk,” “The Slow Moon” and “The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love,” identifies several inspiration for her new novel. First, there was… Read More »

These days, when polio seems as ancient and arcane as bubonic plague, not many people have heard of “the Miracle of Hickory.” But it’s a terrific story — which is one reason why author Diane Chamberlain (“Pretending to Dance,” “The Silent Sister,” etc.) decided to use it for her next novel. Chamberlain outlined the story Monday night for an enthralled audience at Prologue, the monthly book club run by the StarNews and public radio station WHQR. In June 1944, one… Read More »

Calabash author and storyteller Joan Leotta has a new book out — “Summer in a Bowl” (Theaq Publishing, $12.95), intended to introduce the pleasures of gardening (and cooking) to children. Once again, Leotta writes about little Rosa, the heroine of her sledding picture book “WHOOSH!” Every Thursday, Rosa helps her Aunt Mary with her garden. Then she helps Aunt Mary turn the summer vegetables into a tasty broth. Targeting ages 3-9, “Summer in a Bowl” carries an implicit message about… Read More »

When I was a teenager, back in the Nixon administration, our Sunday school had rap sessions. (“Rap,” back then, meant a serious, no-bull talk, at least in our vicinity, with no poetic overtones.) One time, one of my friends brought in his copy of “Highway 61 Revisited,” and we spent a good hour trying to parse the meaning of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” as if it were Bible verses, trying to figure out what it told us about how to… Read More »

About This Blog

This is an emporium for all things literary: occasional book reviews, local book news, items about authors (mostly from the Cape Fear area but occasional visitors) and miscellaneous rants.

The usual author is Ben Steelman, feature writer and book columnist for the Star-News. He’s that shaggy, slightly smelly character you spot lurking in the back aisles of your local bookstore. Physically, he has more than a passing resemblance to Ignatius J. Reilly, hero of John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” — some observers have noted other parallels as well.